It is hard to be organic in a country where spraying is a spring and autumn ritual. My neighbors spend more money on chemicals than on food. Plenty of farmers went out of business claiming that chemicals became so expensive that it is not worth growing crops, and I do not blame them. The literature and all the available press is all about chemicals. If you have a problem treat it with XYZ /carefully kills everything including your pets/ And if you want to organic use sulfate /what a relief/. Nobody talks about biodiversity, improving your environment to the level that your plants will take care of themselves. I have to say I am not a crazy pro-organic freak. I just use common sense. I want to know what I am eating, what I am breathing in when walking in the garden and how to make my garden need less maintenance.

So what is better for a busy gardener? Well I would say go organic. Initially it is more work, but when the system is set and you will be happy. But do not think about organic as a one treatment for a concrete problem. Organic for a busy gardener means setting up a system where nature takes its course. Yes, you still have to weed and yes you still have to prune and you still have to take care of your veggies. But if the system is right and in balance and your minds is set to “natural” mode you will have much less work to do. The part where I say set your mind in the “natural” mode is very important. What do I mean?

1 . Nothing is perfect in nature. Do not expect it from your plants. Do look at them and admire them as they are. Find the beauty in their imperfections (some of us already did in heirloom tomatoes – aren’t they beautiful because they are imperfect?). I am sure your also have some imperfect parts, scars, your nose is bigger then you want, there is dirt under your fingernails, you have a hole in your sock etc. So do not expect the plant to be perfect. Just flow with nature and admire as it is.

2. Share with nature. I do not mind to share with nature. If the birds eat 20% of my cherries there is still plenty left for me. If some of the apples are nibbled by worms I can still have some. Of course there are cases when all of your apples get “infected”, all of your blueberries end up in the hungry birds’ stomachs. Well, the question is if you need to plant more crops to share with nature or set the right natural balance. But learn to share with nature.

3. Sometimes you can try anything but certain plants will be attacked by pests, or will just die on you. Yes you can use spray and try to save it, but the question is if it can be saved. It is extra work and you have to repeat it over and over and over. From the stand point of a busy gardener I do not have the time and mood to do it. If I am really determined to make it happen then I try to pick more resistant varieties or I try to do use the Soviet WWII strategy. I plant plenty of plants and hope some of them survive and get adapted to my garden. These days I am crazy about persimmons so that’s exactly what I did /I will blog about it/. I bought 300 seeds and will do the “hurraaaa” attack on my garden. I just want persimmons! But if you do not have time or that plant is not vital for your life just give up. Plant things that are happy as they are and they do not need you constant attention.

So from a busy gardener standpoint organic way is the way to go. Once the natural balance is set everything takes it course naturally. But do not forget about to set your brain in “natural” mindset. Do not seek perfection, garden is a living thing not a carpet or piece of furniture.

Wow, things got a bit out of hand. Everything is happening so fast! I made these pictures just a week ago and they seem out of date already. This is a small walk through the garden. I hope you enjoy.

In the front i planted some poppies. I bought them on ebay and the “guy” claimed that these are California poppies in different colors. Hmmm… California poppies are light orange I thought…Well maybe not. He was right! Just look at these colors and patterns.

One word. WOW.

Last year I bought around 30-40 different plants and bushes. They came all at once, so some of them got mixed up or I forgot what they were. This is one of the examples: last year we had only foliage and were wondering what the heck is this bush? This year it revealed itself. It is jasmine!

Last year I fell in love with clematis. They come in a huge range of colors, shapes, smells. They are just great! My colleague knew about my obsession with clematis and also about wild flowers. Wild flowers+clematis=wild clematis. It is a great plant. Although very sensitive to fungal diseases.

This is another wild clematis from the hills of Transylvania /Romania

My wife’s favorite, peony. We have a few bushes whcih we got from my dad. Seems I planted them too deep, because this was the only flower. but there is always next year.

My pride. Blueberries in our area are a lot of work. They need acid soil, soft water and plenty of it. You should not plant them close to a concrete wall ! I know i did, but I did not know that at the time ! / I have to admit these are not the only blueberries we have. The total number is now around 8 bushes. One is a low bush blueberry. As I said. if your soil is not acid, they are plenty of work.

They said that they taste like blueberries! Thay said they grow in pH neutral soil! They do grow in pH neutral soil, but they do not taste like blueberries. What a disappointment.

Very rare and very hard to get strawberries “Mara De Bois”. They are premium because they look like cultivated strawberries but taste like wild strawberries. I am so curious. This year was they year of planting strawberries. We also bought “Honeoye” and a Slovak variety “Ostara”. I also started some alpine strawberries from seed. I had to decide about a ground cover under our front window, something among the irises and peonies. In our vineyard I found a neglected area where there were plenty of strawberries fighting a battle with grass. So I transplanted them and used them as a ground cover. It works. And they taste good too.

This chard is a part of the organic veggie garden. Since then we had some rain and it grew 3x bigger.

The organic veggie garden. Tomatoes, corn, watermelon, peas, chard, letuce, aubergines, okra and many more just behind the berry alley. These veggies are grown organically. We will see what is going to happen. The neighbors are famous for spraying like crazy. I hope the pests will not come to me for refuge.

Artichokes popping out. They will replace peas in the veggie bed. Peas are famouse for fixing nitrogen in the soil, so they artichokes will be spoiled a bit.

Sometimes when you go organic you lose a battle. This is a peach tree attacked by leaf curl. Leaf curl is especially dangerous for young trees. I have already lost 2 young peach trees. When all the young leaves get attacked, they fall off and the tree “suffocates”. This one is a lucky one, it was only partly attacked.

This Japanese pear “Nashi” was planted in last autumn and already went crazy. Started soo many fruits. Some of them will have to be removed in order to not overuse the energy. I am glad it likes its new home.

Happy Braeburn apple.

I had no clue what is this pretty weed until i have listened to the Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast. I used to mow it . Well it is Comfrey (Symphytum officinale L.), a superb compost accelerator or fertilizer. To use it as a fertilizer you have to let it rot in the bucket. When Emma from the AKG podcast mentioned that this thing stinks I thought she is just a sensitive “westerner”. We Eastern Europeans are tough ! Well trust her and trust me, when you let it rot that thing stinks ! But it is great for your plants. How far will a good gardener go for his plants? Very far. I have a bucket full of comfrey in the farthest end corner of the garden.

Organic gardening is a lifestyle. You have to attract your “friends”. We have plenty of toad friends residing in my cellar /thank god they do not drink wine!/. With my son we decided to build them Under the Cherry Tree Toad Condos /UCHTTC/. They did not move in yet, we expect them sometime in the autumn. We used the top of the condos as a bed for more strawberries.

This is the very end of the garden full of poppies. These are domesticated wild variety. I have loved them since my childhood. If you want to see more of these beauties check the “Rural walk” post.